


Oh God the Kitchen's on Fire

by RanOutofBatteries



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, How Do I Tag, Reader can use a knife, Reader doesn't have specified gender, The mountain is a place where you can go without worries, and also used to be a chef but is no longer one, and you can kill if it ever comes to it, i'm going into all the timeline shenanigans, ruins are more interesting than video games
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28199052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RanOutofBatteries/pseuds/RanOutofBatteries
Summary: Timeline shenanigans are out of your area of understanding, but you know the consequences for leaving them alone are worse. These monsters are tired and hungry, and you know that starvation is something you would never want out of your worst enemies. So.This time, it's you who's taken far more than you can deal with.
Relationships: Flowey (Undertale)/Reader, Papyrus (Swapfell)/Reader, Papyrus (Undertale)/Reader, Papyrus (underfell)/reader, Sans (Horrortale)/Reader, Sans (Swapfell)/Reader, Sans (Underswap)/Reader, Sans (Undertale)/Reader, but it's platonic
Comments: 9
Kudos: 43





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You'd thought of letting it be, but you know the consequences of leaving them alone are worse. These monsters are tired and hungry, and you know that starvation is something you would never want out of your worst enemies.
> 
> (The one-eyed skeleton watches.)

here's another introduction to undertale again! i made two stories long ago, one got deleted while the other stayed. I loved making both of them but the second got popular beyond my expectations, and i think it just got to me. (thank you for supporting me, i really appreciate it!) it's just the attention also made me more critical of any of the mistakes i do make which made it become... less fun.

fortunately, i am back! i am keeping parts of an old idea and writing it into a new story. hope it works out.

* * *

A fervent and feverish yearning takes hold beyond explanation for those who cannot eat nor sleep and grow indifferent to the world. It didn't matter whether their bodies compel them to kill or to steal. That iron grip is saved for the hunger-struck, to those who know of a purpose far larger than their own but are frightened of the havoc it wreaks at the most introspective of events.

The feeling of loss, of anger, occurs both at home and in an unfamiliar house. Emptiness, without being empty. That yearning strikes with nothing to forewarn its occurrence. 

You know at the center of starvation, the laws of government and physics alike vanish. Its basic instincts are of survival. Their memories won't matter if the effort behind a clock shows no mechanical gears behind its clockface. Any of its auditory cues can envision it there, the culmination of effort and refinement and grueling tenacity it took to weld together its pieces, but without the proper use of maintenance it can only destruct and turn into pieces.

Food is a motive but also a right. Whether it is spontaneous or ordered, on a whim or through years of completion, those who think will never continue thinking if they do not continue their anger and starvation. Their thunder roars in their building, cells upon cells that structure to form its stem.

It eats in order to sway that starving. Even though the lives of many were unseen and unheard and their deaths lasted only a split second, the speculations of what was behind it were enough. And the remnants of the first bacterium to ever exist is crawling still, legs ever-moving, an organism able to make that first step to become what it exists and will become.

But that was not the point of this story. The third-person perspective moves eons to the east, to a place without such need. Ebott and its surrounding forests were kept isolated since their trees grew abnormally tall, older than centuries but still kept from being torn down due to the irregularity of its ground level. The underside of its bark grew native mushrooms that were pale and glowing, and often voices whispered to them while traveling through. Insect activity was increasing.

The city had multiple apartment buildings. One of them was newer and renovated. There was a grocery store and a fish market. There was a library in the center of the town, but for the most part the people living there kept in houses. The apartment was admittedly run-down and cracking in places, and paint was peeling off the front hinges of the metal gate as it creaked ominously, but it still wasn't loud enough to factor into the first floor's sleeping schedules.

The door to the apartment building was locked during the night. Security came by for their rounds. The stairs had a chip cracked in where the support should be, so that section of the ground always made people trip when they weren't expecting it. People who lived there long enough knew to step over it or go around the middle of the crack.

Somewhere on the floor right below you a thump and a muffled scream ensued, laughably right on cue. You snorted.

After turning on your computer and loading up its screen, you start fiddling with the program and its controls. It's simple enough: the gameplay is balanced to a fault, hardwired to be an experience with little to no real actions but a lot of dodges. F4 makes it go fullscreen.

The game you'd chosen has a surefire guarantee to have its text prioritized, but even then there can be tiny bugs and misplaced timings that are available to be taken advantage of. Enemy attacks fire but they all miss dramatically with ample free time. Ones and zeros make up the box that traps you. Nothing can come between the confines of the computer and the mouse, and it is only the player that can see the completion of its results rather than its process.

You know it's there, but you cannot see it. The game itself is an experience between the character and the player. It gives a message and it is received throughout various responses and the two of them build further through that connection.

There was a loud ringing in the air from the blasted emergency door that one of the residents had unwittingly pushed. The manager was too busy to fix it and the staff would have to be phoned in to come and fix it, but it was a twenty-minute drive for them to get here and it would probably be faster if one of you just looked up how to disengage the alarm. It was either that or someone was going to put a rock through the thing, repairs be damned.

The continuous screeching halted just as you considered getting up.

What's the reason for completing it? It didn't matter. The game doesn't require completion, simply the character moving from one space to another. The world stops and starts at the whim of a red button. The first step is only to give the player a name, running against that continuous churn of space-time, the nuclear sun giving birth to its creation.

The realm of the almighty, the gods, the villains, none of it mattered in the face of nothing where not even the greatest of achievements could lay free for anyone to perceive it.

A low yowl and the sound of scratching interrupted you from that daydream and you sighed loudly as you opened the door and let the damn creature inside. The terrifying abomination with four legs practically ran inside, smacked directly into the metal bar of the stool, and booked it to the patio where it flung itself across the bars and down to where the window opening was. Then came the crash of a pot.

Uncomprehendingly you stare at the trash and stains it had left on the floor, the trash in between two spots on the mat.

If you expected a response, there was none.

You had known starvation. You had felt the linger of hunger before far greater than any emotion you've experienced, and you know from encounters how painful it is. The reason to chastise this stray over was zero, and so you go to the refrigerator and bring it back a fish.

It tears through the tuna's flesh with a vigor and eats it, consuming even its bones. You scowl and remove the rest of the bones for it while it continues to eat without hesitation, settling down only when it realizes that you aren't coming to eat it too. It crunches through the rest as you go back to the computer and leave game.

While it was still eating you begin removing the leaves for the broth and start by leaving them in cold water so that they were easier to use later. The taller parts were acclimating to their current state, green shoots bending under the shorter height of the container. On the other end of the countertop stood an unopened wine bottle, hidden away next to the upturned drying rack. You were rather interested in finding out what to make with it but you had no interest in drinking any of it.

The room you'd made into your own was a small open space with enough sunlight that you had picked when first arriving in this place. You wanted something preferably more grain-based, and you decided to start with what you were okay with eating.

The knives were in the drawer and you reached out to unsheathe them from their station. Its engravings glinted in the light, and you traced one finger down the flat edge of the knife. It was broad so that it allowed for easier cutting, though the handle was well-polished and the edge itself ruthlessly sharp. The _santoku_ was for everything, however, so you chose it instead.

You rarely used any of the knives you owned, mostly because you never really found a reason to use them. The majority of them were used for boning fish and eel or for cutting sashimi.

There were some that you rarely took out at all, like the _sujihiki_ and the _yanagiba_ knives, both of which were used for sushi dishes. However, the first one was versatile and could be used for any meats and boneless protein, while the latter was specifically for slicing raw fish. The very idea of getting rid of a knife was criminal in your house even so, and you would probably lose an ear if you kept any of them dull.

In truth, it reminded you of the many orders you'd received from your old teacher that had always been a menace to work through. Although you had recorded speed and efficiency of handling dishes alone, the work and everything else nearly killed you to complete in time. Your brief ire over the loud and boisterous wakeup call quickly died, and then you sighed to yourself in resigned defeat. It wasn't that big of a deal - noise problems had never stopped you before, even if it ruined your concentration and made you slightly more irritable.

The sun was just rising over the horizon.

You turned off the fire when it appeared to be cooked through. The wok jumped as you moved it. You stirred it before dumping it on top of a plate in one steaming pile. You tossed the spatula in the sink as you grabbed your spoils and started eating it.

The rest of your morning went like this. You did this on a regular basis: you spend most of your days inside in front of your computer, and when you did feel like doing more productive you'd make food as per your old occupation or, even less frequently, go outside.

You were gaming trash for the most part.

Your neighbors were strangers to you except when they weren't: a lot of them had decided to see it as an invitation to be nice when you offered them food once as a passing thought. They gave you presents like snacks or something else when you gave them food, and it seemed to be a perfectly respectable partnering. You left your house for supplies several times per week, not just for food but to see if there were sales you'd be able to capitalize on.

There were no interruptions, so you spent the rest of the day online grinding for enemies and leveling up your characters. It was time-consuming but rewarding, and it kept your mind working while the rest of your brain turned off except for combos creating extra damage: E-3-Q-1 or R-2-E.

A breeze sweeps in, and you are duly reminded again that it is summer but you are inside, cloistered away from the insects and heatstroke. There should be at least one time that you're free to roam as you pleased, and that was when the sun was almost down. You close your laptop with a finality and check what time it would be when you returned. It'd be fine.

You get up to head off to the mountains one more time.

Early morning was beginning to settle in, and after checking the window once more you closed it. As you watched the lights flicker on and off along with the city in the background you trundled off with your backpack. Landscapes blurred into the background, roaming clouds rather than stationary figures. Little by little, it solidified.

You cross the gate and make your way back to the edge of the forest. It was a convenience that this building was furthest from town, even if it meant longer bus rides. The rain wasn't a problem at this point but would become one further on. There would be muddy tracks by the time you returned. It would also give you a chance to find more mushrooms.

The mountain trail was far less slippery than you'd expected, though that trepidation was soon replaced by other things. The birds weren't as loud, and overhead you could only see one or two hawks passing by. The wind felt like thunder. Perhaps you hadn't seen the rest of them yet because they were flocking elsewhere.

The roads twisted and turned in the most inconvenient of ways, but that did not stop your pace. Roaming over long boulders and hollowed-out trunks, you heard the brief buzzing of sound once again and turned direction, settling on course. The wind rushed upwind as if helping you along.

The uphill climb began to get steeper further up, and that was when you began pulling more adventurous moves. Using the trowel to make handholds and prevent falling, you jumped from ground to ground as you stabbed wherever the chance gave, pulling yourself up as it caught favorably on a protruding root. You nearly fell as one of your feet slipped, but managed to get yourself up onto the rock anyway. The rest of the platform crumbled away, small bits and pieces of dirt falling down below.

The sides of the path had collapsed from the gravity, rotting planks crumbling while kept aloft against its own weight. What was left of the structure was dark grey and overhanging while the vines continued upward. Dust particles had blackened the stone even further, the consistency of its ash almost like black pepper.

Light beams flickered and swayed along with the branches up above, dancing patterns across the shadowed floor. Moths fluttered and tilted in the wind, green-tailed and beautiful. Rain ruined the dirt paths enough to make hiking difficult. You stuck to the grass-covered parts instead, making sure to dig in heel first before stepping onto the next area. Better your shoes than broken ankles.

In the midst of the mess you climbed onto the next steady clump of land and looked up. The wind carried the scent of fresh air, coupled with the earthy hint of the forest. Even without the taste of salt in the air to remind you that you were not near sea, somehow the cloudless skies reminded you of home.

(The nostalgia brought forth fond memories including the white sails of the fishing boats that docked, the cry of loud seagulls hovering over their heads, and the crash and ebb of foam-covered waves against the rock of the shoreline.)

The memory faded. The trees loomed above, remnants of whatever time they must have been from. Weather and wear had blemished the bark even further into the grooves. Across from it and traveling down in neater lines than for it to be natural were scars marked into the ground, jagged lines that had long since taken new form. The broken trees nearby were also in similar condition, likened to the results in a lightning strike.

Distant calls from further up the path reminded you yet again of something, brief flickers of memories that you grasped at only to forget upon reaching it. The crackling of a nearby fire and the scent of smoke filled your nose. Someone was probably lighting up a campfire. You frowned as you passed it but barreled on. It wasn't as bad now that you'd grown used to it.

You remembered yet another moment from the particular scent. Blacksmithing was not uncommon in the streets of wealthless towns, although it did succeed near places that required it. The only master in that area was an older man with a balding head, tattoo on his forearm and apron pitch because it would be stained by the time his work was complete. You had always associated him with the scent, even subconsciously.

(His fingers had blackened. His bones ached, his face had burned, and yet despite everything his hardworking mein had borne fruit to their craftmanship - a pan, a knife, a sword, sharp to a fault and with no visible imperfections. Its surface had been flawless, and when you had peeked over to look more closely at it the reflection had caught light and startled you with its delicate nature.)

You shook out of the memory. It was of no use to you right now. You continued onward.

The sight of an opening in what was supposed to be sheer cliff made your climbing steady. The ground was scuffed and had signs of recent passage, but it didn't look like tracks. You had never seen anything cavern-like before in all your treks, and the promise of finding something gave you incentive to travel further. The intent grew louder when you reached what looked to be an entryway, and with it so did your drive to hurdle through this physical labor.

Cracks deepened in the wall and moved them apart in jagged, unstable nicks, obtrusively dropping pieces of it down. If the walls had been made from any lesser structure it would surely have crumbled more, enough to collapse upon itself so that the place was blocked from you entirely. It stretched further down and away in a steady slope downward, and you placed your hand on the wall as it continued on.

A long hallway made from the surrounding dirt greeted you. There was no visible sign of any alive being within its premises, but for some inane, unfathomable reason you thought that there were heartbeats here, audible through the wall.

The _nakir_ _i_ was single-edged, allowing for an incredibly sharp edge that cuts through harder items like they're made of butter. The flat end of the knife was primarily to use when slicing things in tighter crowds since meant the knife often had less distance between themselves and the customer so it gave you a safer experience. You normally don't use knives outside of their purpose, but this was an exception.

The vines and the branches blocking the path fell as you removed the debris from the path, treading atop leaves that had fallen during the scuffle in the passage. You had not taken everything into detail regarding how large the room was once you entered. The pillars surrounding you were tall and extremely wide, and there was a lack of space from all the debris that had fallen in the way. More of it was blocking the entrance, making you try and aim for a jump.

You managed to leap over most of them. The last one was wedged diagonally and you squeezed under it, dusting off any particles landing on your head and neck.

"What in the world...?"

There were golden flowers everywhere. Images were made from whatever was left of the wall. Glass panels dictating several murals lifted the light from outside and moved it about in an almost-kaleidoscope, fractured into light splinters. A sign of dark triangles. A depiction of an old city. And, surrounded by the sea of thriving plantlife in this otherwise dilapidated room, was one tombstone. The plants were overgrown, tumbling over the decaying floor and marked green and purple.

A gravestone. You stepped closer. Etched into it were two words: 'Asriel Dreemurr.'

A rustle from the vines behind you. You whirled around, your knife at the ready. There was nothing around, but from what you'd just walked over before you could've sworn that you hadn't seen a lone flower there. It stood directly upon the space where the grave should have been, and so you avoided it as not to directly trample upon its petals. It swayed in the breeze, taller than the others yet still wilting downward, and so you crouched down slowly.

It appeared normal. Six petals instead of five, like a flower that was attempting to fit in with the others but was failing. The foreboding presence increased upon this realization and you backed away slightly, heading back towards the entrance that you came from. But then it must have felt the tremor because it moved once again, feeling it turning towards you in an eerie motion.

And then you were pulled out of the garden, out and away from the mountain's clutches as you were forcibly removed from the cemetery.

The wind was knocked out of you, and you rolled several times before your back hit something.

You were sweating visibly as you rolled, blood leaking from your shoulder. The last thing you'd seen of the creature was that it was quick, and connected to those roots that strike like snakes when seeing a particularly interesting subject to attack. The image now implanted into your head, you attempted to shake it off but gripped your left shoulder with a startle, catching onto the cloth that'd been turning wet from blood.

It felt alive. It was surreal - it felt like a snake at first, but the last second told otherwise. A pit of malicious intent brought cold reality along with it.

Heart pounding a mile a minute, you breathe hard. The sharp inhale caused a surplus of oxygen in your system which then forced out a coughing hack, and then another. You'd nearly toppled off the pillar. Adjusting the sweater so that you were only wearing half of it, you right yourself and put both hands on your head, propping it up in a manner that would be less straining.

You ignored the stabbing shoulder pain now stretching unpleasantly across your arm. You'd only taken a hit. There were nothing but cave walls blocking the surface, shielding this place from any rain or storm. How your brain managed to think up something like the wind managing to sway a vine was stupidly hopeful. It was the vine that moved and attacked you.

With eyes still watching for the vine and head still aching, you got off the rubble and onto your unsteady feet.

Your internal clock was utterly screwed after that series of on-and-off naps that hadn't helped at all. Ignoring it would be the perfect option and letting it affect the rest of your otherwise normal day seemed stupid to do. But then something else tugged, that same echo that you'd heard before, and then you felt it trembling within your stomach and up your ribs. Go again, it said, and your arms went numb. Normally you clocked out late and woke up early, just because your neighbors had to go to work as well and you wanted to make sure you handled everything. It was strange that you were falling asleep again, but it happened.

Despite the urgency to patch up your still-bleeding injury, you're now feeling strangely calm. You've waited it out before at times when you've stranded yourself in the woods, making their round trip after you felt good enough to take short rests, since for some reason you were too buzzed for any of the normal hitchhikers' advice to manage their way through your eardrum and into your head earlier.

The half-imagined conversations you did hear while partly concussed had been terrible. You were probably imagining it. They couldn't have been real.

Things were engraved in the wall, bark siphoned off to let the writer chip into the underside. You brushed aside the vines dangling over the ruins and headed inside. The golden flowers died out there, and instead growing out of the dirt that had been left unattended and was now growing weeds along the corners and edges. Broken windows had left shattered glass among the rocks and plant life, letting you know to avoid them.

It took the both of you by surprise when the sharp metal teeth of a trap clamped down out of nowhere on a stray vine. This moment of respite was where you saw the full picture of what you were fighting against.

It was a flower. The one with the abnormality. Its roots converged to the center where its base was, its head pulled out of the dirt that had been recently moved, and judging by the tracks that circled around and back it'd been trying to deter you from noticing it.

Then it begins slashing at the vine stuck on the trap, destroying its own root while doing it. You could see it wobble on itself before it sunk into the ground entirely, the effort tremendous. Its root was left stuck on the trap, left behind in order for it to escape.

"Fuck!" You heard it curse, and you doubled back. The flower that was also alive just spoke. It was talking to you. "You just _had_ to get me outside the damn barrier, didn't you?! This is why I never leave the damn mountain, there's insects and dirt and rocks and - _ugh -_ fuckin traps I just lost an arm! Health points, douchebag! A third of it's gone, just from bleeding!"

"Actually, plants don't bleed," you reply seriously. "When a plant is cut they start directing nutrients and minerals around the cut to seal the area off by using plasmodesmata, which travels through the cell walls in-"

A vine lands inches from you as you dodge out of the way as it shrieks. "Shut up!"

It continues its attempts to kill you. You're snapped back into reality. Your _nakiri_ is less than an equal match against three other vines, and so you resort back to your tactic of dodging and weaving. You duck behind a tree and its vine scars the trunk, the force of its whiplash helping you understand just how bad the damage could've been had it hit you in the chest or vital spot. You got lucky.

The sounds alert you by giving you cues just before the vines leap out of the earth, making you respond by side-stepping as they headed towards its vibrations instead of you. The yelling stopped, but now there was a quiet scattering and yet another angry hiss from the flower every time you moved. It seemed like sound was its cue as well, but instead of using it to your advantage you'd turned it on its head so that you could put it against itself.

Distraction aside, you turned over a hollow tree entirely and let the vines squabble at the sides, cracking through the wood like it was made out of cardboard. It attempted a leap only to fall back down against the rock, vines tumbling aggressively. It was definitely going to wake up whatever was sleeping around you.

Of course, the thing did not respond and only curled up further to snarl, roots rising in a display of intimidation. You looked around and moved back, knowing that the flower would have to be the one dealing with this mess and that he couldn't just let you run around on the floor. Then again, if it tried to overcommit then letting it go for the throat would be a lot easier time on you in return. No hassle trying to find its way past the rock and into somewhere it couldn't travel through.

Decision made, you tilted forward. Immediately the flower popped out as well and its vines were intent on stabbing through your intestines. You watched as its vines bounded upwards, hovering for just a moment, before swooping for the kill. You leaned back and let it impale itself against the ground, giving you ample enough time to move and head straight for the flower itself who suddenly looked out of place.

It continued to try and reach back with its vines, aiming straight towards you and itself in the process. It aborted its mission when it realized the vines weren't going to make it and popped into the earth, hiding from you as it lost its vision. That was when you ran right back into the ruins while it shouted after you. You were quicker than its resurfacing, however, and it took a delayed three seconds before the vines dug in a furtive attempt to halt your escape. Was it protecting this space? That only made it an incentive for this to work.

It re-emerged at the entryway, suspiciously darting around to try and locate where you were.

Not once did it try looking up. Unbeknownst to it, you had immediately climbed a pillar as soon as it had come in and was now given a full view to where it was trying to see where you were. It circled the room, craning its head vigorously to try and locate the sound. When it finally showed up beneath the rock you fell down, knife at its stem while your hand threatened to dislocate where the flower's neck would've been had it owned one. It was trapped behind the hand without a path to escape in. The thorns were only half a second behind your back. Both of you were breathing heavily.

The flower was shifting again. Its face rotated as you moved that reminded you of surveillance cameras, although there were no mechanical whirs and vines hung ominously from the ceiling. The backpack was starting to get uncomfortable and was digging into your skin with a vengeance. You don't move; instead, you shove your hand into its neck and wait for it to make up its mind or for the vines to come down.

The intense urge to reach this place had finally faded. You are immensely relieved.

The relief was short-lived: the flower's makeshift thorns were now trailing ever-closer and it seemed to have made up its mind about something. The vines writhed as if possessed with the intent to kill, which judging by previous actions most definitely did. One of them points straight in your direction, arrowlike and murderous.

"Why," it asked. Its voice sounded high-pitched but lower in tone. Your confusion must have been obvious because then it sneers at your expression, petals turning. "Why did you come here."

"To test my mountain-climbing abilities."

The flower stared at you, waiting for you to continue speaking or make a funny joke or any sort of hint indicating a further response. You didn't say anything. It seemed irritated at that, enough to slam a vine at the wall and let the rubble come off and hit the ground. Several more rocks slammed into the dirt. "What in the hell is wrong with you?" It asked disbelievingly. And then - "Of course the first person I talk to in months is insane. What did I even expect..."

You're moving back even further as it stabs at the pillars, even more pillars falling from the impact. The decrepit state of this place explained a few things and you would definitely die if you attempted to step even closer from there.

"Wow," you say. "You're gonna get us both stuck if you keep doing that. I'd rather not die by pillar."

"Yes, I know," it sneers, but it removes the vines upon your saying so and the rumbling stops as the pillars cease their falling. The entryway was now ruined. Then it looks resigned. You don't like the way it's staring.

You shouldered the backpack strapped across your right shoulder, only now remembering how painful it was to move after being in the moment. It was starting to ache once everything finally hit. You'd finally taken off one strap so it could be less abrasive to the wound, but if you needed to run again it'd have to be left behind. You probably couldn't handle any more weight on it.

"What the hell are you?" You asked.

It snorted. "Real mature of you. I'm Flowey the flower."

"I'm the one with the knife here. Also, you injured my shoulder."

"If you didn't intrude in the first place, then I wouldn't have thought you were trying to raid my house."

"Oh. Sorry."

The chances out of getting out of this were slim. Flowey's vines aren't disappearing anytime soon, but the knife isn't exactly going away either. One wrong move and either of you can get the sharp end. Even if it stabs you, the reflex your arm makes might not let it live. You quickly come to a decision.

"I'll let go if you let me leave," you said.

"Why didn't you run in the first place if you weren't looking for a fight?" It asked.

"You would've skewered me if I turned to leave," you replied.

Silence. You were right in that assumption.

It glared up at you as the vines receded, and once you stepped back it turned to face you instead of running away. Once it was okay you took in the flower's features once again: you only just realized that it had a distinguishable face, black beady eyes and a scowl permanently set on its visage. You replace the knife with the sweater as you reattach the makeshift bandage to your wound.

"What is this place called?" You asked.

It continued to glower. "The Ruins," it spat. "Well, all of it now that everybody left. Some of them come back every so often, but since the food and the core were both dwindling anyway I'd only assume that everyone's gone. Some of the materials here are only specific to this place, so the nerd in glasses should be coming frequently."

"People lived here?" You take a look around the broken windows, the cracked entryway, the long corridor down the other end that seemed to be old and dusty.

"Yeah, yeah, keep it in your eye sockets." Flowey's gaze drifted over the yellow flowers, somehow still strong despite the lack of visible waterways or an open roofspace. It seemed like the flower might be the cause of these plants still living. "Humans did a number on us, we're not very keen on letting them in."

It was darker already with the sound of a thunderstorm in the distance, and you were sure that if you tried heading back now you'd probably get lost; or even worse, trip and die somewhere. You decide to sit down, placing your backpack beside you. Flowey didn't seem to notice.

"What did we humans do?"

"What - seriously? Even after all this time?... Of course no humans remember, we've been down there for absolute centuries, those assholes." Flowey rolled its eyes, but it wasn't holding any real malice. "Those wizards. Magic dealers. They engaged a full-on war with us and then locked the rest of the monsters up when we couldn't fight anymore. Trapped us in this mountain since before you and I were ever alive."

"And Asriel Dreemurr?"

It froze. It looked back at the gravestone, almost half-realizing it had the name written across it, and turned back to you without speaking. "...A being of monsterkind," it said, "the only son of the king and queen."

"Ah."

Flowey told you all of this, and when you listened to it all it was accompanied by the beginnings of rain as the weather outside fit the detail of all the problems the monsters had faced underground.

Ebott came from bloody beginnings. It was impossible to ignore once the monsters trapped underneath the mountain remained with their stories after they were finally freed, and it was impossible to pretend that it somehow meant less when enough time had passed and the perpetrators had forgotten. Monsterkind can be spoken about in a clinical and detached manner, a mere husk of its former self, but their influence was scalding to the rest of the world that had forgotten them. They were hypersensitive. It physically pained you to hear the settings in which they originated from.

So even now, it was hard to become indifferent. Some of them had starved down there. They had forgotten the people themselves, forgot their emotions, their struggles and similarities, and now that some of them had returned alive the world could only feel remorse.

"There was a Long time ago," Flowey said, "when two races ruled over Earth: HUMANS and MONSTERS.

One day, war broke out between the two races. After a long battle, the humans were victorious. They sealed the monsters underground with a magic spell."

"And then-"

A crash of a thunderbolt scares the both of you. Flowey curses inaudibly.

"No. It's raining," it realized once the first lightning strike hit. The sudden onset of rain didn't help its case. "Shit. Damn it. Now you won't leave."

You glance outside. Yeah, no chance. You'd probably trip and die. "Yep."

"Fine, whatever." It popped up in another location, next to the gravestone again. It curled around the base of the tomb where the head should be, closing up its petals in a drooping way that indicated to you that it was recuperating. "Just don't bother or wake me up."

"Sounds good to me."

* * *

A rustle from the left bushes. The winds were traveling southward, fortunately, so it just bypassed the area where he'd been chasing down a large animal of some sort. The uneasy sound made the both of them startle, however, and his prey pranced off with a kick and a flurry of unstable movements. Meanwhile the hunter paused, unaccustomed to seeing another within its territories so easily.

Hunting was illegal in these parts, but the mountain was vast and with very little area surveillance in the further parts it was perfect grounds for people to catch game such as bear and deer. The traps were too easy to locate, however, and Ebott's law would act accordingly in case they were able to track the owner down. Experience told him where his food would be. He'd drawn out a map in his mind of all possible locations.

It was an unconscious movement at this point, watching at all angles to see if anyone had caught him. "The man is sent into jail by his own consciousness," as Emerson had once said. He could feel the eyes burning on his back.

The owl had veered off. Down went the hunter, rifle dragging through weed and fern. The edge caught on a rock, but with a slight nudge it was moved aside.

Across the bridge the river ran. It was straight-cut in the beginning, pebbles trembling as it climbed against hard rock and moss growing on the underside of driftwood. Fish fell from the water like multicolored pieces of one enormous, decorated puzzle. But then it shifted, changed course, and suddenly the current moved in a completely different direction, veering off-path and through beyond its small crevice it had resided in.

When sudden eyes met the one dilated pupil of a skeleton holding a sharp, heavy-handed axe the human began to run. Fear roved over and the man wanted nothing more than to survive, and the monster's red glowing eye turned and disappeared back into the underbrush, avoiding the human and returning to its own tracks. They had never seen each other in the first place, after all. Night was a place for dangerous things, and the man would soon regret it.

The end of the creek was where the skeleton finally stopped moving, leaning down to clean his axe and tilt his head sideways, listening for any noises creeping up from behind. Death-sunken eyes stared blind in a certain direction, barely wavering from its path. There was a noise ringing in his skull that did not go away even for a moment, a thin sheet of static covering the air as it buzzed against him.

He stayed close to other carrion eaters.

The sun was rising. He rose his head along with it, watching the sky turn vermillion was morning but still somewhat dark, practically no light coming through. He peers through the window and watches the neighboring housekeeper go to do work, leaving the apartment building.

The old man in the other building the housekeeper took care of had filled his house with a lot of things over the years: trinkets and traditional boxes and cabinets. Collectibles were his go-to, and although it seemed tacky at first he kept many things that were available for the taking, some of the pieces more valuable than others. Rarely did he ever take from houses, but this one was full of salvageable items that wouldn't be remembered.

The floorboards creak. He moves slowly and maneuvers past blanketed sofas and thrown pillows. There is a postcard on a desk with a stamp and the date it was sent. The drawers were filled with valuables and glass animals, a menagerie of things that nobody would notice.

Edibles were taken. He started sorting through this house's things, but a mistimed wave and a loud crash from a teacup he'd missed caused him to become alert. His eye darted left. Somewhere across the hallway footsteps sounded, one of the workers in this apartment moving closer to locate the noise.

The man paused in his midway rounds across the lower floors, flashlight flicking over to the direction where he'd heard the sound of crashing. The poker he'd been keeping steady clattered against the floor, the wrapper that he'd been holding falling into the black plastic bin, and with both hands still occupied and still carrying it around about he began walking closer to where a not-empty garbage can was shaking slightly, the bottom rattling against the ground as whatever animal was inside made scuffing noises and scratch marks.

Upon walking closer an animal seemed to grow in fervor in an attempt to escape the trash can, hissing anew as it scrabbled inside. He stopped and decided to walk in fewer steps this time, waiting so that it wouldn't make such a goddamn racket in the extremely early hours. They already had too many of those and it was useless trying to file a noise complaint. They all did it anyway.

He had several more hours to go before his work was over. His watch ticked slowly against the back of his wrist, indicating that he was already loitering about for several minutes and could probably spare a few more trying to send whatever stray was inside to a shelter. Or clean it off, depending on how mangled it was. He could still hear the clanging from other cans that may have been put in, the thought being an unpleasant one. There was literally no reason to open a can, throw trash in, and close the damn thing again when there was a free trash bin literally right next to it. One with the garbage bag attached.

The door to the room was left ajar, leading the janitor to his conclusion. The raccoon must've gotten in this man's apartment. He shakes his head and moves on. The housekeeper would be alerted, and that's it.

You knew it was evening when the owl calls hit you, and you awake with a start.

The flower whirled to you just as you moved, as if it had just startled at the person that'd been sleeping in the same place as it had been. For a second it seemed just as out-of-it as you were, struggling to see where you were, before its eyes opened.

"You're... you're real," it said, disbelieving.

You nod, waving hello.

There it was. A lone yellow flower stared back at you, and then the thorned vines were pointing in your direction. You startle, but it wasn't going to kill you. Instead, it gestures towards the front where the supposed barrier used to stand.

"Follow me," it said, sounding far more defeated than you would've liked, and disappeared into the soil. Its tracks led to the cliff further up.

You look back once, seeing the tree blocking out most of the light coming in, and soon follow.

It's not very bright out due to it being evening, so what light did hit the ground floor you cherished greatly when trying to walk through the crunching leaves under your feet. It was easier because the trees moved far below you and the cliff of the platform was above the underbrush, but you still couldn't see a proper way down unless you climbed down the vertical wall.

"How am I going to get down from here? The rock is still wet." You asked. At this question Flowey begins uprooting its vines, sending two of them down the side of the rock as they encircled around branches and rock.

"I'm faster than you, that's for sure."

"Yeah."

"Coming?" It said. One of the vines circled around you and you realized what it was doing. Or trying to do.

"Oh, yeah, sure. I...thanks."

Flowey lifted the two of you off the ground, scaling down the mountain much quicker than you could've done with an injured shoulder. It climbed across and through rocky terrain with an ease that you were envious of. It slithered down trees at times, rooting in dirt whenever you both had the chance, and not even once did you have to touch the ground.

Under your directions, it heads back to the normal hiking trails, winding all the way down to where the forest clearing was. And then you two would be at the apartment. The vines' tracks go over leaves, grass clinging to you as you walked. Your vision is clear and you are at an impasse, unsure whether it was from the lack of sunlight or anything else that would make a plant like Flowey anguish. Despite it all, Flowey remained evenly paced and hard-focused.

"You're stronger than you look," you tell it. Flowey seems to get quicker in response.

The market lay across the road, further into the back areas of town where pedestrians came by to buy wares. You point to your building and Flowey lets you off, popping into the earth and digging its way through as you begin heading towards the gate. You let go of the bin with one hand to open the door of the apartment building, ready to see whatever was waiting inside, and shone the light in to spot whatever animal was inside hissing at the new blinding source.

Meanwhile, Flowey pushed its way through the gap in the opening and allowed itself inside, curiously nosing at the scents wafting through one of the windows on the side of the wall. Vines stretched up high, it landed in one of the windowsills and leaped its way across the chasm onto one of the deck railings, white baluster dry but still dangerous enough to slip.

Luckily, it did not. It continued its way into the living space of whoever rented the apartment room and sat in its pot, climbing onto the table higher up so that it could reach its reward. Two pupils dilated in the darkness, and suddenly the flower ducked out of the way as the cat ran out past the plant and outside to the window it'd come from. Soon after it disappeared, leaving no evidence that it had been there in the first place.

The door opens and closes. You take off your shoes and take a cup of water to down it without hesitation, and then you sit down and open the rice cooker. The seaweed packaging is oily underneath your fingers but you manage to roll them out anyway, cutting it into strips before putting down the rice. It takes less than ten minutes to complete the job.

Flowey watches as you eat anything you can get your hands on. You can feel the disgust from it. "I had hand sanitizer here," you tell it. "Stop it."

"Just get me a dirt pot."

You head back outside after eating as quickly as possible, getting a shovel to fill a pot with. The implications make you stop once you put it down, and you stare as Flowey fits itself into the pot while settling its leaves in.

Flowey observes the room with quieting ease. Its gaze lands on the miasma of games that you had covering a third of the floor space and whirls its head to glare at you. You blink and place the pot down.

The first thing you do is take out the things that you wanted to eat - several slices of toast, the mug of tea, and asparagus. They would each take different times individually but you start with the bread ones and preheat the oven. The timer is set to thirty minutes. Flowey continues to talk about something involving technology and you reach for the fridge handle, pulling it open to see where the food was.

It's looking at you again, but this time it's with less disgust and more of just that attitude. Its confusion is palpable as you cook lotus roots while turning them with a pair of chopsticks. They sizzle as they hit, carrying the scent of the spices you'd added in. You pour in the flattened green beans and sesame seeds, continuing to stir. You add in soy sauce, then chili sauce, two tablespoons of ketchup, and then the rest of the seeds. It leans back.

You just shrug.

It starts growing quieter as you keep making yourself food, and you start noticing it once you realize that its vines are drooping. You become more than just concerned when Flowey completely stops responding to you and slumps over, conversation dying off.

"Dude?" You stop the fire. "What's wrong?"

"I'm going to finish...recuperating... the roots," Flowey slurred out its words. Its voice was slowing down and getting more stilted as it went on. You could see it dropping its head several times, struggling to stay aloft. "Need...to...grow back the arm I lost...then I can leave...then..."

You put it next to the window just as Flowey shuts off entirely, lost to the world as it fell asleep again.

You didn't realize how much of a strain you'd put on the flower and feel thankful for it doing more than it should've, but you were now worried. You hurriedly take out a bottle of aspirin and place one next to the creature. You'd probably know how it responds to it once it wakes up again. You were also quite tired, and your shoulder was still in pain. You down two pills from the bottle.

From somewhere in the building you could hear some sort of yowling. It was too far for you to notice, though, and after taking painkillers you dozed off in peace as well. The two of you immerse in a deep, heavy rest.

On the floor below you in the very hallway where you had entered the building, the janitor heard something similar to a chainsaw hitting wood and then several more of the same caliber, each of the sounds raucous and ear-grating. You heard nothing since you were already asleep. If Flowey were awake it would've noticed that it unmistakably sounded like the giant beam of a Gaster Blaster, but it nor you were awake to tell that to.

Flowey continued to sleep for three days. You left a cup of water every time the dirt seemed too dry, and it seemed to be working as soon there was a tiny green bud where the stump of its root used to be. In the meantime, you continued to play your video games and keep an eye on whether or not Flowey would wake up.

You turned off the burner as the water had long past reached boiling point and you waited for it to cool down. You realized that you'd only drunk one cup and that you'd probably need more by the time everyone else came home from work, which gave you enough incentive to pour yourself another drink. It would be an energy booster to deal with the amount of noise.

The prep took some time. You often saved the bones from various animals whenever you had the chance, mainly because they were good for putting into a stew and letting it simmer throughout the day. It was the least amount of work you needed to do over a day's worth of time, and it came out amazing the longer you spent boiling it.

Of course, the lid was either kept on or you'd have to continuously pour more water into it since the steam evaporated, which was a waste and you'd only want to do it when you were running out and wanted to make more. The pot was still oil-free despite however many times you'd used it for that singular soup, and you were glad for how long-lasting it seemed to be.

It was 1 PM when you last checked - that was more than enough time to finish the soup and the peach cheesecake - the first of which was wafting a delicious scent out the window, the second taking on a mellow note. You gaze contemplatively at the timer when you hear the sound of shuffling roots.

"Your aim is really terrible," Flowey said from next to you as it absentmindedly watched you play another round. You didn't realize it had woken up. You press the pause button.

"Good morning. Or, good night."

"How long was I out?" It asks blearily, and you turn to it in surprise.

"Three days and a little more than that," you reply, and it whirls to face the windows. You're right. You can see the moon rising sky-high, neon lights flickering on, and the city's loud honking informs you that the night has been alive longer than you two had thought.

"Thank you for helping me out."

"No problem."

Flowey's face turns. It moves out of its pot that's been gratuitously watered and is gone the next time you blink.

You see it moving back toward the mountains. The yellow flower pauses, turns to you, and waves once before disappearing into the soil. You lean back and sigh as you finally sink into your chair, contemplating over the last several days.

It's history, once it had woken up, had been a topic on your mind for the duration of its stay, but the idea of distressing the monster and causing it to abscond scared you. It was possible that it didn't want to be inconvenienced any longer and this was just a return trip, nothing special. That was probably a mildly stressful experience for it as Flowey was forced to recuperate in a pot instead of at its home, in an unfamiliar house, with a person it'd known for about a day. You usually don't keep guests for that long. Going in and finding you alone may have been offputting to it, and awkward at that, due to the both of you being isolated for a long time.

But it didn't seem appalled by your presense. It had thrown comments around at your behavior, sure, but for the most part it had actually seemed willing to sit in and hear you talk to it. Perhaps the loneliness was getting to you and it. You had half a thought to go back to the mountain once your arm and shoulder healed.

Problem solved, then. The idea of writing a note and sticking it outside of the door was becoming more appealing by the second. Whenever anyone should show up you could let them leave whatever they needed to give you at the door since leaving the key under the doormat would probably get it stolen anyway.

And doing so would give you the free time to leave and do what you wished. The mountain came up again, stronger this time, and you considered it as you pulled a post-it note out of the desk drawer. Following the same trail would be easier when the sun was past its highest point and the rain had dried out. It would require that every landmark you'd seen had been exactly the same, too, otherwise you would get very lost. For some ungodly purpose, though, you knew that you would go searching for the abandoned ruins and garden up in the mountain. It had meant something important, perhaps not to you specifically, but the thought of the thing living there had your stomach twisting in strange knots.

If it were any indication that you were not in fact focusing on a post-it note and more on relieving the infodump your head wanted to give on the makeshift map you'd built purposefully recreating which way the trail would lead so that you could go there again, where to go off the path, which was was a winding dead-end and where you needed to try getting in a foothold in to climb up the next cliff and when to - okay.

And the strangest feeling of it all was that somehow, the flower felt so familiar. Not in the physical, tangible sense, because despite how simple the golden flowers looked they were six-petaled and tapered thin at the edges, unlike the buttercups that had rounded ends and had five petals.

It was stuck to the grave, or at least you thought it had been judging by the roots embedded into the soil. The bright, yellow petals had been torn and shriveled in places as if the flower had been in a fight of some kind. It was imperfect in comparison to the other perfectly unharmed flowers, so it must have been moved around because the tombstone didn't look new at all either. Did it de-root itself and travel through by dragging away from fights? Or did it go under like some sort of strange earthworm traveling through the dirt?

Perhaps you had seen it before once somewhere while up near the infinite landscapes that they called a forest. There were so many things up there that they'd created legends out of the creatures lurking in the dark, only apparently some of them had been real and had returned to enact vengeance.

Or in this case, coexistence.

The tapping that your finger made against the countertop finally ceased and you straightened up, decision made.

You picked up the pen almost as if holding some sort of unidentifiable dead carcass, wondering how to word the message in a manner that mattered.

With the other hand you shove a trowel into your backpack, then after some consideration you add a well-sized garden pot and manage to fit it decently inside as well. If you were planning on bringing back some of those flowers then it would be an opportune time to do it.

Your obligations came later. Right now you had the most impulsive decision to make it up the mountain and see what was bugging you.

"Alright. See you later," you say to your many still-there, unmoving game cartridges and consoles, and then you slap the post it on the door. Then it's the last thing you see when the door shuts behind you and your smile finally fades, looking out past the stairs and into the opening through the wall granting a similar view of the mountain, imposing even with its far proximity.

It was late, but you were willing to find what was up there and sate your curiosity, even if there was nothing left remaining up there.

* * *

it's done.

This was an experience. I managed to write this as soon as I grasped ahold of all the plot points and tied them together. I'm going to make this my ultimatum if it's the last thing I do.

Alright, see you all in the next chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

Here you go! I got the next one

hey hey hey, I'm back! this one was way easier to do, the second chapter really ate at my patience. I expected to finish this sooner, but I got distracted by store things and I have to get ready for prints. I'm still writing, though! Third chapter's next.

  
Hope you enjoy it!

* * *

You head up the mountain again, feet stuttering up the cliff. The trek feels awfully familiar - maybe it was because you just climbed it three days ago. It reinforces the map you've already made inside your own head, cutting off small missteps and letting you take shorter trips to get you quicker up the cliffside.

It was still more than a bit difficult to replicate, but after a couple of hours and a far better timestamp you manage to reach up and heave your way to the final post. The ruins are next to you: based on what Flowey had previously mentioned, it was the last step to the barrier and not the first. You briefly wonder how far it went. Were those flowers over there on the other side, too?

Flowey wasn't there outside, so you head in.

It was at its usual spot near the gravestone again. Its head doesn't swivel, but once you get near it says dryly, "so you're back."

"Damn," you reply sadly, clutching to your chest with a tear in your eye. You lean back in a haphazard, forlorn manner. "I didn't know how little you cared about your pal."

It spits, but from the corner of your eye you could've sworn its mouth quirked in a brutal attempt to squash down a better expression.

"You're a nuisance to monsterkind."

"I've never even fought you in a Mario Kart race. Try telling me that again once I beat you for good."

Flowey's fluttering petals starkly contrasted with the sharp grey of the gravestone behind it and you are duly reminded of how solemn its purpose is. It was the last bastion to keep humans from entering the ruins through killing if it had to. This much was evident.

"Why'd you return?" It asked with little to no impatience.

"I didn't have any reason not to." It gives up completely, releasing an utterly defeated breath.

"Just follow me _."_

For a moment, it did not look like an emotionless monster with beady black eyes, cruel and malevolent and utterly demonic. It looked lost, downcast - alone. Flowey's back is turned as it relocates in a different position, pointing one leaf towards the corridor leading further past the corrugation of the structures here.

You look back once, seeing the last pillar blocking out most of the light coming in, and soon follow.

The Last Corridor stands, a yellow overlay laid upon tiles and tiles of the marble flooring. It's not very clean anymore since no one is keeping track of all the dirt that keeps going through it, but the barrier managed to keep the weather out and the walls from caving in. Most of the windows are still intact and the room was beautiful, but cracks are seeping through the ceiling and the walls as dust covered the floor. It seems to be a miracle that it's been holding so strongly.

"This is the place of holding, where the Judge makes sure that nobody gets through to the king without being completely evaluated. It's a very important job. He did real good on watching people for all the lazy shit he makes people put up with, I'll tell you that much..."

The elevator at the end of the hall dings once you press the button, and you two settle in silence as Flowey digs its head underground. It reaches the first floor of the facility, which you notice is high-gear in advanced technologies and with many converging pipelines leading to places that you could not see. Going down the beaten path, dry from all of the heat radiating within the lava, you peer over the edge and shudder minutely.

The laboratory was built upon such a dangerous area? It was interconnected to all the other areas, but the temperature and the isolated space made it seem like a place not suited for people.

The fact that monsters had lived near active magma like this didn't surprise you upon the realization that some of the monsters were also elementals. There was a machine looming in the distance, towerlike in its appearance and seemingly running its wires and pipes along the walls further down. It did not look active anymore.

The hotel building lay across the road, further into the back areas of town where pedestrians came by to buy wares. The bushes lining the wooden boardwalk were dry and no longer well-tended. Stones laid down the path, causing Flowey to give you a glare as you stopped to pick one.

"Why do humans do such idiotic things?" It asks somberly. "Who the hell climbs up a mountain, finds a cave, and goes just gallivanting through it just because they can?"

"I do," you reply. "I did that just a couple nights ago."

"You're an utter waste of time."

"Tough."

"Well... at least you aren't Chara. Or Frisk, at that matter."

You briefly wrack your memories for any hint of the two and only barely recognize one of those names. You think you've read Frisk's name somewhere before. Posters had come up before months ago about missing children, and that name had been on the list. You tilt your head and prop your legs up onto your stone, listening to the flower speak with intent. "Yeah. Never met either of em."

He's glaring up at the roof of the cavern, stalactites up high above. "That stupid kid. Up and ditched on us as soon as the opportunity arrived."

"Wait, really?" You ask. That didn't sound like a normal thing to do after spending so long struggling their way out without injuring anyone. "So they got you out, broke the barrier, but then went home as soon as the monsters got their freedom?"

Flowey shudders. "No. Actually, there was a bit of a scuffle that happened after Asgore got everyone to leave the caves. Frisk wasn't there."

"You mean mentally?"

"No, I mean... physically. As soon as the barrier went down and they walked out past the caverns, they just vanished from existence."

A cold feeling travels up through your spine.

"It's like they stopped existing. The monsters were able to get through just fine, Asgore tried it first, but nothing happened to any of them. Frisk wasn't able to be found anywhere, and we were still too shaky to attempt human communications. So we retreated again, whether it was to relocate our homes or to protect the laboratories. Alphys stayed, and so did I."

The lack of emotion in its voice accompanied by the silence of the area itself scared you a bit. Its emptiness caused a brief echo, ricocheting beyond the absence of sound. "Where did you guys all go?"

"Everyone left. They all decided to pack up and move off together, away from the mountain but somewhere out that's still nearby. It's not as if we didn't hold a connection to this place, of course there was some form of attachment to it whether for nostalgia or for the technological facilities of the damn CORE. But we all had that insane urge to flee from this prison. You don't know how it feels, not knowing if you'll ever be free from the confines of this place."

You know that, after looking at this place, it would start feeling claustrophobic after a while. It digs again and reconvenes outside the other side of the walkway, into where the hotel was located. There were no doors to bar your way through, and so you continued.

The carpeting was red but had bits of grime in areas where the water leaked through. The water fountain at the center of the guest meeting area was broken, and it had been turned off a long time ago according to the lack of algae around it. The lights were dim as well, either having gone out with no replacements or having been manually turned off.

"Mettaton's hotel. There's nothing important here, let's keep moving."

Flowey heads off, and you glance at the lobby desk covered in empty burger wrappers before following after.

The lava was especially hot here. Your face began to get flushed, and Flowey was not doing so great either. After a moment, you take out your earth pot and begin shoveling the ground with it. "What are you doing?" It squawks when you pick up the dirt around it.

"Get in."

It grumbles agitatedly but complies. Roots fall with a collapsible heave into the pot. You pick both it and the dirt up, leaving a small crater in the ground. It's dry beyond compare, but you'd already done it and there would probably be a place to replant Flowey soon, so you leave it be.

That was until you noticed the flashing yellow scales of the person stepping quietly in through the white building ahead of you.

"So uh," you say as you blindly reach behind you to put the shovel back. In your jacket was the knife. "I just saw someone walking in there ahead of us. Are they going to keep updated on the generator or the electricity that's still running?"

"Yeah," it said, still distracted by the pot. It was large, but the dirt was still hard and unmoving. It struggled to wiggle through. "That's probably the nerd in glasses. You'll know it when you see her, she's a real anime dork."

"That's good enough for me."

You put the knife further down into your jacket once the potential danger was given the okay and hoist the pot into both of your arms. It's light, but unwieldy.

"She comes down every so often to do these checkups. I actually haven't seen her around recently, so I'm assuming she holed herself up in that lab again. The core is about to break because of the nerd not handling it well, and should we ever have to return it won't have enough food to sustain us unless we keep doing maintenance. Ugh... not that we're coming back. But outside has a lot of problems, just like it does in here."

You grimace. "Who created the core in the first place?"

"Asgore used to have a Royal Scientist. His name was... His name..." Flowey furrowed its brow and shook its head to clear itself of any thoughts. "Anyway! It doesn't matter now. Alphys is the appointed scientist now, and she's been stressed over so many things that she can't actually do much shit. It's a lot better since everybody's gone."

The door to the building slides open automatically before you reach out to open it. The lights are already on, and its fluorescent glare reminds you of hospital areas and reception lobbies. You walk inside, ignoring the messy stacks of paper on the desk in favor of watching the multiple cameras set up in locations that were being broadcasted on several screens.

"That's a lot of surveillance," you noted. Flowey made a clicking noise.

"It's to make sure nobody's been in here. Undyne's been off settling people in their homes, she's too busy to be making her rounds. Nobody wants to live out in the wilderness, but Asgore mentioned that it'd be harder to assimilate with humans if we never left. Good riddance."

"Dude, don't say 'good riddance' to King Asgore."

"Don't care. That guy is a pushover."

There is a refrigerator behind the desk with a large bag of what looks to be kibble on the side. Beyond that is a long hallway with a door to the left, and above there were several bookcases all lined and color-coded according to their series. Several of them appeared to be mangas, and all of them were in average condition. Some of these books seemed to be about human history. The lab itself was extremely spacious.

There is a rustle from the door deeper inside the laboratory. You two freeze. After a moment of more shuffling, you see it open and watch as a bright-scaled reptilian monster with black glasses, holding a mug and a file of papers, closes it behind her. She looks up and stops as well.

"Oh god," she exclaims.

You pause before greeting. She lowers her mug, unsure of where to put it. She lifts it up again. "I wasn't expecting...uh...so soon." A double-take happens again at the pot you're holding as Flowey, sitting within it, waves impatiently.

"Get with the introductions, lizard. Hurry it up, we don't have all day."

"Actually, I sort of do have a ton of time," you say.

"Shut it."

Alphys clears her throat. Both of you shut up. Like Flowey had asked earlier, she introduces herself.

"H-hello! I am Dr. Alphys. I'm the previous Royal Scientist of the Underground. But currently there's, ahh, a bit of a pickle, since, uh, he's no longer king of the monsters anymore."

"Wait, what?" Flowey exclaimed.

"W-well, actually, he still is!" Alphys is sweating now, and she hurriedly moves the files to her other hand as she removes her glasses. She sets it back atop her nose after checking it thoroughly. "It's just that we - I mean - the monsters are in several sections now."

" _What_? Sections?" Flowey narrowed its eyes. "Are you making a joke? Nerd scientists like you can tell jokes now?"

"I am not a - I mean, I am, but that's not the point!" Alphys waves her mug. "After the barrier broke down and everybody got out, the phenomenon happened where the human disappeared. I'm sure that it's not far from memory, it was a pretty traumatizing event."

"Yeah?"

"A-after that," she says, scratching at her scales with one of her rather long nails, "I went to check back on the core. Because there was, what if - there was something that happened with the core? And so I returned, but then I saw - something-"

"Get to the point, Alph."

She settles. Through her glasses her eyes become focused and sharp. "The barrier warped the outside," she says. "Timelines are funneling into this one somehow. All of the worlds are normally as they are, but there is something that is happening between us and the humans' side of the barrier. It's making it so that all of the monsters who've gotten out of their own timelines are pulled into ours. We're probably not even in the same timeline ourselves."

You stare at her. She adjusts her glasses again and settles her gaze upon her desk, still covered in papers. "So you're all technically from a different timeline and you're all converging into this one. And you're all just going with it."

"Undyne comes to help, sometimes," she admits. "The other one, I mean. It's the scientist, uh - we called her the swapped version. She's nice, and we manage to deal with any faulty machinery together. But it's harder to talk to the other two."

"That's fair, I suppose."

She fiddles with her coat. "Also, their homes look a lot different than ours," she further explained. "Our core is structured differently, according to their comments when visiting me. We've had multiple layouts drawn out and overall our entire history is written differently from each other, but our scientific notes are okay."

She checks the time and jumps. "I'm sorry for holding you guys up," she says, "b-but I have a lot of work to do. You can still stay here, of course! It's just, uh - I'll be especially busy trying to get this all done. And keep up with the core's internal systems."

"We'll be out of your way, then," Flowey says, and gestures. "Come on, let's go."

You say a goodbye. Alphys waves, but she's already doing her own work and is thusly distracted. The building fades as you two head on into the recesses of the caverns, and eventually the ground turns into something more habitable for plants to thrive in. Flowey is discarded into the dirt, and it moves about in a satisfactory manner before making a face.

"Eugh, marsh land. It's cold and gross."

"I'd think those are pretty good climates for a plant that needs water and nutrients."

"There's no sunlight. That's the more important part."

"Touche."

"So does Alphys have any assistant? Why is she here alone?"

"Everyone else is looking for a place to live. I suppose it is weird, though, since the core's a pretty important part of our base if we ever needed more electricity..." Flowey waved a root offhandedly. "Eh, it doesn't matter. That's their problem to deal with."

"That's fair. Although, I think you'd also find issue if and when the whole place breaks down completely."

"Alphys is fine. She can handle it."

Flowey sounds extremely sure when it says that, and you glance down to see it looking far ahead. Its gaze is unwavering. "Believe in her. She's done things that I would've said was crazy back in my days when I was still alive."

"When you were still _what?"_

Flowey's eyes avert quickly and it avoids the question. "Fuck - I mean nothing! Nothing is wrong."

You decide to ignore its questionable responses and walk onward. Blue glowing mushrooms - ones you recognize, finally - filled the entire marshlands with dim light, making the caves appear both welcoming and ominous. As you walk past some of them you can hear faint voices and you pause, listening more closely.

"- _it's finally arrived!"_

_"Our freedom is secured. Who won it?"_

_"Asgore, because he couldn't have broken the barrier without seven-"_

It cuts off there, jumbled with other voices.

" _-we're free! we're free!"_

_"I'm leaving and never coming back again. I've almost - I'd given up-"_

_"-How long, how long has it been since I've arrived?"_

The voices continue with conversations of the same topic, all of them supposedly moving towards the exit. Several of them had taken longer to get their things, others had been unsure, but for the most part they'd rushed immediately outside to feel the sun for the first time ever. It was heart-warming and heartbreaking at the same time as you realized how much the idea of leaving the barrier had meant for them.

You can feel a pain in your chest from the relief it brings you.

"It was a far-off hope, but they'd pulled it off," Flowey mentioned with a scowl that was a bit less menacing.

"If it means anything at all, I'm glad you guys made it."

The mushrooms and the flowers both disappeared as you passed by several houses. One was burned down and didn't seem to be renovated at all - burnt patches of the inside and its wooden flooring showed how much the destructive fire had caused to the house.

There was a river even further down with a boat and a long oar. There was no occupant there. You step in cautiously and begin paddling, standing as you pushed against the boardwalk into the current.

The oar pulled a bit at your injured arm and you tried not to use it too much, keeping your shoulder in place. It was tolerable enough for you to handle.

"...How is it?"

You turn to look.

Flowey rolls its eyes. "Your shoulder. I know that humans don't have magic, not unless it's activated. It only spawns once you enter the barrier but it's broken."

You roll it and it twinges. "It's been healing nicely. But it's not completely there yet: as long as I don't strain the muscle it should be alright."

It leaves you alone. The current is mainly doing all the work - all you need to do is nudge the boat back into place whenever it nearly bumps into the side of the cave. You continue in this manner until it reaches all the way to the beginning of the bend, where you two step off.

"Do we leave it here?"

"No shit."

You and Flowey simultaneously think it, but both of you refuse to acknowledge the bantering parts of your relationship. It's a relief to be open enough to laugh: you hadn't known how much you enjoyed a specific person's company until he came along. You hadn't even noticed how long you've been thinking of Flowey as it.

Snow makes you become more stern about vertical stability, and as it crunches beneath your shoes you realize that there is frost leading up to the far distance. You start walking faster: your clothing was not equipped for such a large change in weather. You don't really have too great a cold resistance.

The buildings rush by in a blur of color as you run through them - a tall, two-story house - a restaurant with orange lighting - a library with the name misspelled. Then a ton of trees whiz by as you continue sprinting through, ignoring the traps laid out but deactivated. You're breathing heavily as you finally reach the end.

A purple door stands at the final part of the caverns. Flowey is silent.

You wait to regain your breathing pattern as your composure returns. You reach out with both hands and pull it open with a grunt. They come apart, but barely. This door had no handles and only opened in one direction, so it was up to you to pry apart the door.

You stand in the tiny circle of golden flowers. You look up at the sky through the small hole in the crevice.

"This..." You look up, up at the light and the dust flickering about in it. Soft, but fleeting. It reached up past your grasp so far away, unable to be reached past that distance and the great vertigo of height. "This is the only light of the two places I've seen."

"Yeah..." Flowey shrugs. "Not much down here."

"Do you normally go back this far in?"

"...No," he says. "That'd mean I'd have to pass through Snowdin again, and I'm not going to tell you but that place is goddamn cold."

You can feel it when he says that, but it also makes you believe that it's not the only reason.

You don't know how long the monster had been living here alone, but you knew that the lack of sun along with the lack of companionship was trouble. You can't say anything about what he wants, but if you had the choice then you'd come up here just to visit him. So you say it to him to bring home a point.

"I'm going to visit you," you tell him. "Like I mean a ton. Unless you can eat this quiche I've been baking, essentially just a pie with vegetables in it. There's peaches, too. I don't know what talking flowers eat, so those are your two options until I find otherwise."

Flowey stares at you. You are slightly intimidated by his laser focus. Then after a moment, he begins trembling with some sort of unidentifiable emotion which you realize belatedly that it is, in fact, uncontained laughter. "God damn it," he says, and the vines are moving in midair like weird tentacle arms. They are leafless at the tips but have bits and pieces of foliage further up, elongated and thin. "Why do I always get the idiot ones... fuck it, I'll take the pie."

Then he veers away, and the next few seconds are ones watching the door to the ruins - the real ruins - open slowly.

You walk through a long corridor. Flowey has put himself around your uninjured shoulder, unable to move directly through the floor unless he was separated entirely from aboveground. There are a set of stairs, and then Flowey starts to appear intimidated once you climb them.

The light that greets you is homely. The place seemed to be built using a plethora of fire magic, and its warmth filled you to the brim with a variety of emotions as it greeted you harmoniously - _welcome home,_ it said, and you could feel the joy and the strange melancholy it brings to create some sort of nostalgia. White tufts of fur are left behind in the kitchen and the chair, but otherwise the house is relatively clean.

"It's beautiful," you say to nothing.

"Yeah," Flowey said, a little quiet, and you two continue moving.

You crunch through bright red leaves, contrasting solely with the dark purple of the environment. Its pillars continue to lead upward high above until you can almost see the ceiling, and the green ivy climbing through the cracks in between the bricks continue throughout the ruins. There are silver plates with messages written on them, and you peer closer. 'If you can read this, press the green switch,' it says.

Instead of doing as it said, though, you turn to look back: all of the spikes that were supposed to be blocking you had already retreated. It looks to be like it wasn't set up properly.

You continue to read the messages as you move, though - 'If you can read this, press the red switch,' 'If you can read this, press the blue switch,' and then a long straight path. There were bits and bobs of spiderwebs overlooking it all, and yet there were no hints of any spiders around.

There was a point where the ground seemed to be unstable, and yet a pile of red leaves with a message on it seemed to give the hint of this room. Instead of solving it, Flowey travels through and gestures as he makes a trail behind him.

A long walk after, you two reach the end.

The final part of this cavern is a circular room that's covered in dirt and rocks, stretching up high above you until you can see a pinprick of light. It was much like the one further ahead, but this time it was much further up. A meadow of yellow flowers fills the room, blooming in such a small space, and yet it thrived and brought life to this otherwise grim outlook.

There are no other signs of plants growing anywhere other than the center. Dirt tracks behind you as you enter the sunlight, and in the distance you believe that you can even hear birds chirping.

"So this is it," you say to Flowey. You sit down.

The petals brush you as your legs move over them, and pollen reaches the calf of your pants. You'd remove the yellow pollen later, but for now you lean back and stare upward at that speck in the distance, continuously shining and a mockery of what was above.

Flowey looked above. "I'd tried climbing it before," he admitted, "but the roof is concave. It curves inwards and it's too high up, so I always come back down before I can even reach the halfway distance."

"That makes sense." You gauge the wall - if you tried grabbing ahold of that you'd probably fall down after the first few meters. "An impossible wall to climb."

"And an incredible distance."

The sun was far above, but it had reached its peak - you were probably in the afternoon now. Flowey emerges at the center of the flowers and shakes himself abruptly, causing pollen to fly. "God damn stupid flowers," he sneezed, but then he picked one stem out using a vine.

"What are you doing now?"

"Flower crown."

"Good."

You watch him as he continues to pluck flowers. There are still so many around, but the feeling of ruining such a perfect scene saddens you a bit. He finishes the flower crown and puts it on top of your head, a bit askew, but it was perfectly made.

"Not going to lie...it looked like you were cannibalizing your brethren. Since you look the same as these flowers and all."

"Ew. Never say that again."

You pat the flowers. They're springy and cool to the touch, unbroken in their building, and you can feel your heart build as well. Flowey follows you back as you head towards the river again, ready to depart for good.

"When are you leaving, human?"

It takes a moment for you to figure out your response. You keep the flowers on top of your head. You'd planned on going home before night again, but Flowey seemed a bit adamant that you check everything and you didn't want to just skip out on the waterfall. "I'm coming to the places I'd missed before. There's probably a bunch of areas that I need to look at."

"...The history of monsters is written in the walls," Flowey says, and he burrows in the earth as you trail after him in the boat.

You appear back at the place where the waterfall starts. It falls down, deep into the abyss, and you move through as you go in chronological order. The flowers speak as you listen closely, hearing the things they talk about.

 _"A long time ago,"_ a voice said, _"monsters would whisper their wishes to the stars in the sky. If you hoped with all your heart, your wish would come true. Now, all we have are these sparkling stones on the ceiling..."_

_"Thousands of people wishing together can't be wrong. The king will prove that."_

The flowers continue speaking once you move past the light of the rocks in the ceiling. It opens up wider into a vast room, river flowing continuously through. 'The War of Humans and Monsters' is the next message. You read over it with increasing trepidation. _What crimes have we committed? Where did it go?_

_'Why did the humans attack? It seemed that they had nothing to fear: humans are unbelievably strong. It would take the SOUL of nearly every monster just to equal the power of a single human SOUL.'_

_'But humans have one weakness. Ironically, it is the strength of their SOUL. Its power allows it to persist outside the human body, even after death. If a monster defeats a human, they can take its SOUL. A monster wth a human SOUL... a horrible beast with unfathomable power. The power to take their SOULs. This is the power that the humans feared.'_

Flowey rolls his eyes at a couple of them. "Humans were stronger than the monsters. That's all you need to understand from that whole lot."

They fade in the distance. Flowey can't travel through the expanse of water separating you from the other side of the river, so you grab ahold of him and continue using the plank of wood that somehow carries you without tipping over and capsizing. Once you reach it safely, it returns back into the darkness. You trek on.

The sound of rain hits you as you stop in place. In the ceiling there is another cave entrance, light trickling in, and below is a statue with an umbrella. The face is unrecognizably shadowed and it is hooded with two large horns protruding from the sides of its head.

"Huh." You crouch down to look more intensely at its features. Judging by its appearance, it's supposed to be a monster. It's carrying a human in its arms, one that has its eyes closed in the position of mourning. The human is likely to be deceased. It looks like a sad history passed between the two, the details which you don't know.

"Asriel Dreemurr," Flowey said. He was sitting by your side, gaze trained directly on the two figures. Weathering through rain together, no way to get home without losing the other. "A monster and a human."

You move on.

"Well," you say once you reach the end. The barrier is no longer there, but you can feel the presence of something that was stronger but is now nothing once more. "We're here again."

The two of you stare at the gravestone. _Asriel Dreemurr,_ it says.

"I used to be the monster named Asriel."

The flower's voice jerks you to attention. "He was a child who had a human sibling, and we were okay with it. I was okay with it. We loved Chara, after all. But then the humans attacked, after I tried to visit their village when Chara was dying, and I..." He trailed off. "I died there."

You remain silent.

"Alphys did an experiment using a flower and tried to reanimate a monster from its dead ashes, which were supposed to be long gone. It worked: it brought me back from death." Flowey sneered. "But I have nothing. No Chara, no body, no recognition from my own parents. No feeling. I tried, a couple runs, to be the son that Toriel wanted. But it didn't work out - even at home all I felt was an emptiness."

"That's not your fault."

"I _know."_ He leaned down. "I know, and yet still..."

"I've heard this from a friend." Both Flowey and the gravestone were cast in a pale glow from the entrance. "Every day you wake up, right? And every day you have a choice to do a certain thing. You might not have a reason to do it, but in the end the right and wrong choices exist."

"Yeah."

"So you make a choice." Your gaze bores into his. You are completely serious. "And they will either destroy lives or make them whole."

"...Yes."

"But you still have a choice."

"What are you getting at?"

You dust dirt off your knees. "The point is nothing. I don't have the force to make your decision for you, as does nothing else in this world. But you do. And so every single action you make is yours alone. That's all that you need."

Flowey stares at you.

"I want..." A vine wriggles. He furrows his nonexistent brow. "I want to visit your place again. And pie. I've never actually eaten anything since the monsters left, and I don't need to eat, but it's fun."

You wave the empty pot.

And instead of running off, Flowey does exactly what you had expected.

He removes himself from the soil with roots churning upward, circumventing the arm and leg standing in his way, and goes up and into the pot in order to climb up and out of the garden while resting in your now-occupied piece of gardening equipment. Chunks of earth fall into the pot with his vines, giving you a sense of added weight.

Then the whole scenario of events clicks. You turn your head in disbelief. He moved really fast for a thing without any arms or legs, and the whole thing had transpired in less than five seconds. The flower landed inside the pot and curled the vines in as his eyes bored into yours.

"Alright," he commanded, now peering over your shoulder from inside your bag. "Let's go, then."

You were still staring at it in disbelief while he rolled his eyes, irritated. "What? Really? You came all the way here because of some stupid impulse, carrying a very big backpack, and you were just expecting me to leave? I'm coming with you. Get us out of here."

You blink. The words process.

He taps impatiently.

You nod. "Oh. Okay."

And then you were climbing back down towards where you came. You leave the garden with petals sticking to the soles of your shoes, flower clinging on to your backpack.

Once you'd climbed down and had ceased questioning your existence the trek down began to get uncomfortable, but you kept your chin up and kept walking. That was way easier than you'd expected. The plant-creature kept moving about in your bag, disturbing the pot and nearly tipping himself out when you moved too fast. Flowey told you to slow down but said little after that.

The building comes into view. You walk up and the door opens as you step through. Once you climb a set of stairs and unlock the apartment door you remove your shoes as Flowey carries himself out of the backpack, managing to hold himself aloft by using vines as a protector and a carrier for his own pot. He's a bit unwieldy but he manages.

Flowey's bite and attitude felt more endearing to you now, to say the least. The flower and the names of children you did not know did not bode well for any sort of healthy combination and with the way he spoke he seemed to favor the first while hating the second. Either one could be a saint.

His poisonous attitude seemed to have lost momentum the longer he kept asking questions. You answer them all to the best of your ability, and even when he starts asking about things like 'what are all the parts of the human body that can kill them immediately' you pretend that those are perfectly normal questions to ask and keep chopping while he comments.

His vines were moving about as he looked at various things. You grab for a spice and he tilts it, but then the end flips forward and throws it to another one who catches it with dexterous ease.

You're exasperated.

And then he started looking at your cabinets. He stared at them as if he hadn't seen you pulling the stuff out seconds ago to put in the food. Which he might not have, now that you thought about it. He poked at each of them. You explained what each one was, and their names.

"Lotus root," you repeat. "Nutmeg. These are the additions. Ginger spice is in the bottle with the red cap, and cinnamon has the green cap."

He's looking over them as if he'd never seen any of it before. Perhaps he hadn't. After a moment, he listens to what you said earlier and grabs the cap of cinnamon, tilting it a bit to let some of it fall onto one of his leaves. He brings it up to his face.

His eyes water. You laugh. "Cinnamon is a spice. It's gonna sting."

But he wasn't crying silently like you were expecting him to. Instead, he lifted the rest of the bottle to himself and cradled it underneath his body, shielding it with the leaves.

You're looking at him as he shrinks, and your resolve thins.

"It's fine," he said, but his face was muffled. "Don't worry."

"I'm not worried."

You take out the pie tin and begin rolling out the flour dough. You cut thin strips to make the top with and speckle it with a layer of egg wash after filling it as Flowey inhales cinnamon. You mix together the apple as he finally removes the cinnamon from his own grasp and hands it to you, eyes askance.

"You make apple pie?"

"I'll make any pie if I have the recipe and ingredients." You wink. "Pick one. I'll make two pies."

His voice is near-silent, quiet as a mouse. "Do you have butterscotch?"

At 4 PM there was a thunking sound coming from downstairs. You heard but ignored it. Perhaps it was the janitor or the apartment owner checking out.

But it was still loud. You got up from your impromptu sleeping session. It sounded like a multitude of footsteps, 10 at most. The noise complaints would be out the roof if it continued just from the sound of the people themselves: several of them were in a raucous shouting match. You couldn't hear what any of them were saying due to them trying to out-compete with the others.

The pie was still cooking, so you set a timer and turned on the television screen to relax. He seemed more interested in the colorful screen for a moment, but he quickly grew disinterested as he muttered something about 'damn Mettaton and his stupid channel.' He'd taken to watching the pie bake through the oven, slowly rising as it turned golden brown and crisp.

You decided to start playing on your controller. Minutes pass, and the noise outside continues. There sounded like more yelling, for a second, but then it was gone. You lower the volume in case Flowey gets up because of the sounds and plug in your headphones. The sounds of button combos and the fighting begin to let you compress.

They eventually stopped just outside your door. You continued playing, buttons pressing rapidly to try and maneuver your way around the boss. This fight was tougher than you'd expected, and a majority of your health potions were gone. You executed your final combo and a victory sounded. You sighed in a relieved finality and let the mouse fall back to the pad, holding off on your celebration once these folks stepped off.

But nothing happened. You'd been almost 100% sure that you heard it - and there it was, another shuffle like a person was waiting outside. Your perception heightened and still high off that win, you check the door and notice that its still locked. Not a group of people trying to break in, at least. It's never happened but you're still wary of it ever being a possibility. Your video games were priced.

"... _can't do nothing about it?"_

 _"_ sorry folks. my magic ran out."

" **same here."**

" _god damn it. fuck."_

Then a knock resounded. It seemed off-putting in this space of yours, where no one else had visited your door without a warning or any sort of vocal greeting. You reply in a tired voice, "Who is it?"

A silence. _"you ask, bud."_

_**"NO."** _

There was a crack against something suspiciously hard-like but hollow, and you could hear one of them wince as the apparent hit took place. **" _You are all wimps."_**

"I, UH - WOULD YOU PERHAPS KNOW WHERE THE OWNER OF THIS ESTABLISHMENT IS, DEAR STRANGER? WE HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR ONE FOR QUITE A BIT BUT THE FIRST FLOOR SEEMS TO BE... LACKING IN PEOPLE."

You check the time. "Well, yeah - it's working hour for most of them. We have to pay the check sometime. Also, the manager's out."

" _WELL, DARN."_

_"fuck."_

"WE ARE LOOKING FOR AN OPEN APARTMENT. OR A SPACE WITHOUT PEOPLE. WOULD YOU KNOW A PLACE THAT HAS ONE? PREFERABLY ASAP."

You squint. "Okay, not going to lie: you guys are sorta loud. How many people are outside my door?"

A perfectly reasonable pause. And then: "2."

**"don't just fuckin' lie, dude. we're obviously not 2 people in this goddamn hallway."**

"damn, didn't know that i don't know how to count."

"WE ARE 2 PEOPLE. RIGHT?"

"he's got a point. i'm sans and you're papyrus."

 _"no,_ i'm _papyrus. you're just a no-brainer."_

**_"_ _SHUT UP, YOU PUN-HEATHEN. I AM THE ONLY RIGHTFUL PAPYRUS HERE."_ **

Disconcertion over their similarities aside, you continue. "This is urgent, right? I'll let you guys in."

"ACTUALLY, WE-"

" _yeah, that's not-"_

"- _WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO SOMETHING, HE'S STILL DUSTING BADLY-"_

" **shut up, it's fine-"**

"that doesn't look alright to me, buddy, you're - stop moving-"

You open the door.

The first thing you see is a skeletal hand stretched halfway towards your door, whether to open or close it you don't know. Carpus, metacarpal bones. Ten skeletal fingers on the one skeleton in front of you, and behind it you can see even more scattered around the hallway. One of them has two glowing red eyes. You think to yourself, _it's a good thing today is a work day._

All of them freeze. You roll your eyes and motioned with your head, once.

One of them opens his mouth. There was a distinct piece of connecting cartridge to the hinge of his jaw, but somehow it was held together as sharp canines opened. You wondered how exactly it worked, but then you let them in.

You head in once again, and behind you can hear them whispering to each other. " _are they alright letting us in like that?"_

"it's one person. seems alright."

"I can hear you."

Silence.

So they file in with the faintest hint of trepidation, and there they were: the first thing you noticed was that despite being literal skeletons, some of them looked strange: even more perplexedly was their similarities. One of them had a long scar across his right eye, and wore all black and red. Another wore bright white armor and a bandana. Another wore blue gloves. All of them seemed to range between apprehensive to relieved to straight-up distrustful.

There were several of them that seemed to match up outfit-wise or came from a different region, but overall they looked near-similar. The red-eyed one had a scar, and the purple one had a different scar spanning across the other side. It was almost like a match.

A crew of monsters, one of them in need of dire assistance: you made your decision point-blank.

"Hey, Flowey," you said to the pot in the kitchen, and noticed a visible reaction from them. You ignore it. "Get up, please."

The flower slowly uncovered his petals from his face, scowling upon being so incoherently addressed to. He was well-aware of these monsters judging by that scowl of an expression he was wearing but he still looked tired, black eyebags beneath his eyes.

"What," he said to them. "I'm outside. Who the fuck cares."

"You know them?"

The blue-sweater jacket skeleton points at it directly, head tilted in a quite peculiar way. "you two are acquainted?"

"Yeah, a little. Taught me some about magic."

The skeleton stares down the flower. His gaze bores so deep into Flowey's skull that the flower becomes slightly nervous about it, vines moving side to side. Flowey seems to avoid his gaze at first, then directing it back to him in vigor. Then his head turns.

"welp," he shrugs to you. "anyway, my pal here needs some bandages. got any to share?"

"Yeah, I have a first-aid kit."

You begin pulling out the required bandages as the injured skeleton limps slowly to one of your sofas. The other skeleton holding - a blade? a bone weapon? - sets his leg up on the kitchen chair and observes Flowey with a scary look. " ** _it's not looking good."_**

"i know that."

The tall red-eyed one leans over you as you grab the roll of bandages. " ** _That won't work_ ," **he says disapprovingly with clawed phalanges as you place it in his outstretched hand. _" **It's not magic-grade. There's nothing on it."**_

_"if the human had healing bandages, i'd honestly be concerned."_

_"I STILL HAVE ENERGY. I'M MOST PROFICIENT WITH GREEN COMPARED TO YOU TWO."_

"don't rush it."

As the bright-armored skeleton began to concentrate, pale green energy began trickling into the roll of bandages. A light shimmer began to glow from his hands, transforming it into a similar-looking but nondescript roll of bandages.

The skeleton deflated.

" _IT'S NOT ENOUGH TO HELP."_

" _better than nothing."_

They wrapped the healing bandage around the broken part of the bone. It appeared to be a thin line of dust rather than any crack or fractured part - in fact, none of them looked to be injured by light fissures you'd normally see in a usual skeleton. Then again, you haven't been around dead people.

The injured one leaned back as a sigh permeated through his black jacket and sweater. Where the air came from, you didn't know. " **alright. thanks."**

" _OF COURSE!"_

 _"s_ orry about this." The blue-jacket skeleton sidles up next to you without any cue, appearing quite literally out of nowhere. "we might stay longer than expected as we wait for him to get better."

"No problem."

He observes you and your kitchen curiously. It's the largest area in your apartment, nearly taking up a fifth of the space. The other half was compiled with games and a desk, writing utensils scattered or stacked neatly in pencil holders. Further back was your bedroom. There was a closet for storage in the hallway. "nice place."

"Yeah, the rent's pretty good with the quality I get. I can make you something, if you guys need it."

Several of them are listening in. "sure."

" _sounds good."_

_"THANK YOU VERY MUCH! WE WILL PAY YOU BACK TENFOLD!"_

_" **no we won't."**_

_**"** OF COURSE WE WILL! WHAT SORT OF A RESPONSE TO A HUMAN'S HOSPITALITY IS THAT?"_

You ignore them as you start pulling out all the necessary ingredients. The timer beeps, and the oven dings. You open the oven and a wafting scent leaves it, carrying itself and making the conversation go quiet. You turn to see several skeletons, now closer and staring at the oven.

"Good timing," you say as you pull out the pies. The bottom of it was perfectly cooked, and once you check the sides they seem to be warmed completely. "Couldn't have eaten it all with only two people."

" **thank fucking god. i'm starvin'."**

" _RUDE!"_

Despite the sounds, you cut it to pieces and place it on the counter. A couple disappear on impact, and you blink again to see three of them holding plates as they consume the pie. Where it goes to, you don't know.

"I'm assuming you still want actual food," you warn them, "so don't eat it all. Well, actually, eat what you want. I don't decide for you."

"pretty good."

" _this is actually incredible, don't lie."_

 _"_ THANK YOU AGAIN."

The knife comes out of its station. You flip it once, and the blade rests gently against the wood of the cutting board.

The oranges moved in quick patterns as you began peeling, moving it in such a rapid way that the skeleton behind you moved back in surprise. You'd done this before. "It's good. My guardian didn't really tell me how dangerous it was to hold a knife and I actually nearly stabbed myself once for being stupid. He told me off after that one. He knew what he was doing, and it would never cut in the way other people probably feared it would. It's restaurant business, so of course I had to get used to it."

"The way you know how good people are with their weapons is when they treat the knife and the thing they're cutting with a gentle hand. If you've done it before and you have a good eye, keeping the blade steady is as simple as giving an orange." And then the onion is complete, piling in a heap before you diced the carrots. You stare at the empty space where it had been several seconds ago, then shake your head to clear it.

"You wanna know something?" The handle rotates in your palm and you tilt the end so that the lettering and silver details both become visible, and the flower's eyes widen as he catches it. "One of my favorite things about blades, in general, is the ensemble."

The image of the dragon curling upward had always been one of the best things about them. It shimmers, the illusion of multifaceted scales marking patterns into the side of the fantastical creature as its maw opened.

"Pretty, right? Knives can be that." You gently roll an orange out of its bowl and twirl the blade in your hand. "Even if cutting things is what they're used for. When I was younger I'd always be watching my dad debone fish and eel and things that were ten times bigger than him, because that was how you ended up with food to serve out."

Flowey is the only person near you that is in the kitchen, so you're mainly talking to him as you go. He sits out of the way but watches you, and a dawning realization occurs tp him that the rest of them are watching as they eat. He glares at them all menacingly.

He bites into an orange. After your sign of approval, he devours half of it and letting the rest be. Flowey coughs slightly when you nod.

"Thank you," he says softly. "I didn't really... know what you worked."

He frowns, stumbles over his words in an attempt to word it better, but you get the gist of it and laugh. "Anytime, kid. I know a lot about everything in this room, so feel free to ask if you have the time to come by again."

The implication settles. "I can come back? Whenever I want?"

"Yeah. That's no problem."

Flowey seems to visibly widen and then close his eyes. You tug at him considerably. "Alright, then." You roll your left sleeve down, then up again. "I need to make soup, bread, and garlic."

Distraction aside, you nod and gesture your head over to the stove where the water was boiling. Dried tea leaves were already set for your own cup and you'd comprised the other out of ground barley, most of it having settled at the bottom. The choice was for the guest since many people disliked drinking too many combinations at the same time, and it was best to give out options for a first-time meeting.

You suppose your first action should be to offer a drink. You weren't exactly sure how skeletons ate, but it would be rude to assume anything off the bat.

"Would you like any tea?"

"YES! OF COURSE!"

The skeleton who spoke eagerly takes in the paraphernalia of pots and pans and kitchenware, most of them having been collected in your kitchen. The rest of the room was almost bare in comparison, not that you really minded.

"AH - YES! I WAS QUITE INTERESTED IN WHAT YOU HAD TO OFFER SINCE WE HAVE A BIT OF A PREDICAMENT ON OUR HANDS AS OF RIGHT NOW. YOUR ACTIONS HAD ALSO TOLD ME THAT YOU USUALLY LET PEOPLE IN OFTEN! WHICH I WAS GOING TO SAY IS VERY DANGEROUS AND THAT YOU SHOULDN'T TRUST STRANGERS IN YOUR HOME, BUT I NOW SEE THAT YOU ARE WELL-ARMED."

You laugh. "Well, I definitely know my way around knives. Oh, hey! I have some things I've been planning to make for you, but it seems I'm a bit short on time. You can take a look at these instead."

You start lining the beef with the blade, thin crisscrosses that you left to the pan as you started on the lettuce, chicken stock, and tomatoes after wiping the blade down. The tomatoes were quickly pureed, then the mushrooms were diced and put into the bowl as well.

"MY APOLOGIES! I SEEM TO HAVE FORGOTTEN MY MANNERS AND HAVE NOT INTRODUCED MYSELF PROPERLY. WHO AM I, YOU ASK? I AM KNOWN BY BOTH MONSTERS AND HUMANS ALIKE AS 'THE GREAT PAPYRUS!' OR, FOR SHORT, JUST 'PAPYRUS.'"

He eagerly bounded to your counter seat but paused as they actually surveyed the items surrounding your kitchen. "Oh," the voice says, but quieter, and then a moment of silence. You pour water into the tea kettle before finally greeting your houseguest.

The skeleton was much taller than you'd expected, so you had to tilt your head upward slightly to meet his expectant gaze. His grin seemed almost permanent, although that was to be expected considering he was made out of bones. Not very flexible material, you surmised, although you'd only dealt with animals and not human bones and the general consensus was that monsters were made from magic and practically nothing else.

Then there were several seconds of silence. You were wondering what he was doing when he continued to stare at them, frowning heavily as if contemplating. His eyelights bore into the pies before Papyrus realized what he was doing and glanced directly to you. You pause in the middle of drinking.

The skeleton next to them stiffened, tensing up from the close proximity. You nudged your head a bit to the side and they seemed to realize that they were making the person uncomfortable, scooting a bit away to him to manage a little better.

"Soup," you replied, gesturing. "Meat or tomato."

**_"meat._ "**

**"** TOMATO!"

You take another pot and pour in the chicken stock, adding tomato juice and stirring it in while on low heat. Cranking in salt and pepper, brown sugar, and adding all the tomatoes and tomato paste, you get in flour and turn it to medium.

 _"THANK YOU FOR FEEDING US!"_ Caesicius' eyelights had morphed back into circles, which had turned downcast. _"WE REALLY APPRECIATE IT. I'M_ _GETTING WORRIED ABOUT OUR HEALTH. OUR FOOD SUPPLIES ARE NOT HOLDING WELL."_

 _"_ can't bother them about it. it's our problem to deal with."

_"HUMAN! CAN YOU HELP US OUT?"_

"Yeah, sure," you say to them immediately, but then your shoulders rise. "Wait a minute. You have more than this group? How many more?"

They stare at each other, then back to you. "Uh...around five hundred and twenty?" Papyrus says meekly.

You sit down on a chair and put your face in your hands.

"Must be the timeline thing," you say.

"Yeah. It was something to do with the way Frisk disappeared, before," Flowey nodded.

 _"i don't get why it happened, though,"_ tall orange-sweater mused. " _we had a kid who ran through the barrier just fine, freed us, and disappeared. we all ended up here."_

"sounds like a problem for a different _time-_ line."

" **fuck you, sans."**

 **"** that's rude, _tibia_ honest."

" **okay, that one was funny."**

The tomato soup seemed complete the second time you checked it. You take it off the heat and ladle it into several bowls, breaking off a piece of bread for the tomato soups and forking the beef into its stew.

The aroma overpowered the pie. The injured one opened his eyes as you brought one over to him, reaching up to take it. " **thanks,"** he spoke gruffly, lifting up the spoon. Then he began wolfing it down, eating as if he's never had a meal before. " **holy shit, this is actually good."**

 **"** you're hungry. slow down."

The injured skeleton continued eating as if he didn't hear a thing. The blue-sweater one rolled his eyelights in their sockets, but reached up and took a bite.

"oh, crap. it is."

" _you're the ketchup guy. what were you expecting?"_

 _"_ i should've known."

And then they were all eating.

The reminder of starvation loomed in the back of your mind as you saw these monsters. Flowey looked at them curiously but said nothing: several of them ate with manners while minding the person feeding them. But the less caring ones ate like they had no control, and you reached for a glass of water.

You could only imagine how hard the doctor was working to keep the machine alive. With five times the amount of monsters, the amount required to feed all of them must be tremendous. No wonder their sources were dwindling and they had to leave.

It would've died eventually if the centuries continued on, but the occurring events only sped up the process. The amount of effort needed to grow crops was tremendous, and nobody who was human would give a skeleton seeds and soil and water to become self-sufficient. They would've needed to steal to survive.

The thought lingers in your head as they continue to eat the remainder of their meal. Flowey takes one look at your expression and sighs inaudibly as if this was naturally going to be the decision you made. "Fine," he says, and disappears. You thank him internally.

"If you have the money," you begin carefully, and the blue-sweater one turns to you. The taller skeleton - Papyrus, you believe - looks over as well. "I can help you find a room. I'll ask the receptionist for you. It's not a big deal to get food, either, not with the job I work. All I have to do is get the ingredients."

The blue-eyed skeleton puts his utensil down. " _THANK YOU!"_ He cries, putting a glove to his face. " _OH, THANK YOU! THAT MEANS SO MUCH TO ME!"_

 _"_ could you do it?" The blue-sweater one cocks his head. "the amount of food you'd have to bring in is a lot. and i know it's not going to be enough."

"If you have those-" You snap your fingers. "Any foodbox or storage space that makes sure it doesn't rot, I can make literally whatever you want."

"yeah." He holds up a phone. It looks old and outdated. "transdimensional boxes. we all have them."

"Then I can do it." Your eyes are serious.

"are you sure?" He says again. He looks...not nervous, not apprehensive, but a little bit more honest. He's asking a genuine question.

"Starving people deserve to eat."

And the look on your face makes him go silent.

He grins. "then sure."

* * *

asdf

thank you for reading. I have so much things to look forward to, and I've been thinking about writing a Minecraft fanfic (unrelated to dream smp) to just relive the game and remind myself how good this game is.

See you in the next chapter!


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